and all that could have been
by Cap'n Pirate Monkey
Summary: Alex Krycek and Marita Covarrubias - how they met, how they came to trust one another, how they became lovers and how it was probably doomed from the start. Set during Terma.
1. Chapter 1

TITLE: And All That Could Have Been

AUTHOR: Miss Monkeh

DISTRIBUTION: Archive freely

RATING: R

SPOILERS: Up to Terma

DISCLAIMER: Story is mine, characters and components are not.

_'Thought he had it all before they called his bluff_

_found out that his skin just wasn't thick enough_

_wanted to go back to how it was before_

_thought he lost everything_

_then he lost a whole lot more_

_A fool's devotion swallowed up in empty space_

_the tears of regret frozen to the side of his face'_

"_I'm Looking Forward To Joining You, Finally"_

_Nine Inch Nails_

It is 3am when Marita receives the call, and initially she doesn't give a shit about any of it. The caller speaks Russian, and at 3am with two hours' sleep under her belt, she doesn't feel much like translating. She rubs the grit from her eyes and politely punctuates the conversation with 'yes', 'no', 'I see'. The back of her neck bristles with the irritation of having to deal with this nonsense at such a ridiculous hour.

Through the flood of words, she picks at nouns – 'Achinsk', 'Hospital', 'Surgery' – and attempts to stitch them together to form a story. It seems to be about a person, badly injured, who has been taken to hospital in Achinsk. More to the point, she discovers as the conversation progresses, the person has asked quite specifically for a Miss Marita to fly immediately to Russia, before he is taken for emergency surgery. She is particularly annoyed about this because she doesn't know anyone in Achinsk, much less anyone in Achinsk who needs emergency surgery, but can't think of a valid excuse quickly enough. Marita assures him she will be there as quickly as she possibly can, and hangs up with a relieved sigh.

The clock flashes 3.23am in accusatory red digits. Marita gets out of bed, far too tired to be undertaking this mystery mercy mission. It would be remiss of her to refuse, though. She wonders as she makes the bed what her life would be like now if she had become a secretary or something equally a simple. Her sheets are freshly laundered and smell faintly of jasmine. She feels an absurd disappointment as she realises that, by the time she returns, they will be musty and stale.

She picks a large overnight bag out of her closet. She doesn't plan to be in Russia any longer than she has to be, but she has a company credit card at her disposal if things don't go quite to plan.

She sighs. Russia, she thinks, smoothing out a blouse. What a pain in the ass. A nine hour flight to Moscow, five hour internal flight and another hour spent in a cab with a deranged Ukrainian driver travelling in endless circles looking for the hospital.

She curses under her breath as she rolls a stocking up over her thigh. Achinsk is in the vicinity of Krasnoyarsk, her last connection with Russia in weeks. It is where Fox Mulder had been headed when he visited her in the small hours a week ago. She'd arranged travel documents for him while he dozed on her couch. Shit. Marita hitches her skirt over her hips and pulls on her blouse. She cranes her neck and peers through the curtains at the sliver of purple sky. The stars are sharp little ice chips in the sky, flashing brightly and without warmth. New York in November is unforgiving at best. For the first time this year, she thinks about taking a hat and scarf out with her.

As she finishes packing, her thoughts turn back to Russia, and to Mulder, who had been chasing a man with a diplomatic pouch containing sensitive information she hadn't even been privy to. If it is Mulder lying in that hospital in Achinsk, then she is in trouble. Instinctively, she grabs the phone; she knows someone will be there no matter the hour.

"Yes?" a voice at the end of the phone, clipped English accent. Marita inhales sharply. She had hoped it wouldn't be him.

"Sir," she replies.

"Covarrubias."

Marita swallows down her nerves. "Sir, I've been summoned urgently to Achinsk. I am not at liberty to disclose why, but I felt it necessary to forewarn you of my absence."

There is an uncomfortably long pause. Marita pulls nervously at the buttons on her blouse. Talk, damn you.

He does, finally, his voice severe. "Achinsk" he says, drawing out the final syllable for so long Marita thinks he is humming a tune. "Close to Krasnoyarsk, isn't it?"

Marita feels a lead weight drop into the pit of her stomach. "Yes, sir"

"Hm."

The silence goes on for what feels like an age. She realises, with some surprise, that she has already pulled one button from her blouse and is about to remove another. She pulls her arm back down to her side. She'll have to change before she leaves. If she ever does leave. "Sir, I trust there are no problems with this arrangement?"

"Why, not at all," he says, and he sounds almost friendly, as if she is an old friend, and not an employee absconding without reason to the ass end of Russia. "In fact, there's something you can do for me while you're out there."

He knows, thinks Marita. Her stomach is seized with panic. Swallowing down bile, she wonders if she should go armed. "What would that be?"

She hears movement on the other end, a shuffling of papers. "Alex Krycek was sighted last week. JFK International Airport. New York. Your neck of the woods, I believe."

How the fuck is that relevant? she thinks. "Alex Krycek is missing, presumed dead. Even so, I'm not sure how I can help with that from Siberia."

"Apparently, Krycek is far less dead than we presumed" the old man replies. His voice is now terse and reedy, and she realises that Krycek's name alone, like a talisman, is enough to put him on edge. "Airport security footage confirms he left the country on a flight bound to Krasnoyarsk. He appeared to be in the company of Agent Mulder."

Shit. Marita scrabbles blindly in her bedside cabinet for the handgun she keeps among the lint and unpaired socks. She is about to formulate some half baked response to keep the old man sweet when he speaks again.

"I expect Agent Mulder was responsible for freeing Krycek from the missile silo. In any case, it's imperative that he is caught before he can cause any significant damage."

Marita catches herself before she can sigh in relief; she is in the clear for now. "I will gather intelligence on Krycek's whereabouts while I'm there. I'll report back to you by tomorrow evening with any news."

"Good girl. I'll have my secretary book you on the next flight. Attend to your business. Should you locate Krycek, we have men in St. Petersburg ready to dispatch at your command. I don't care if you bring him back cold."

She replaces the receiver without saying goodbye. Her eyes travel to her overnight bag, which suddenly seems inadequate, but she is comforted by the old man and his fear of Krycek, clouding his suspicions; it is hard to be a double agent. She laughs to herself, a slightly bitter laugh. Pity poor Krycek, who has spread himself so thinly it's a wonder he's not starting to tear at the seams.

As she transfers her belongings to a bigger suitcase – because she knows she will be there for much longer than she would like - she thinks about what the old man said. Krycek, spotted in Mulder's company. The last time Mulder and Krycek had worked together had been at the will of the Smoking Man, and that had ended badly. Since then, they had been dancing around each other, somehow avoiding major injury despite their mutual animosity. And after the silo, she'd told him to lay low, maybe get a real job like a normal civilian. Something was amiss here; perhaps the old man had been mistaken.

But no, she thinks, zipping up the suitcase. She doesn't doubt Krycek was there. She has heard whispered rumours of him in the boardroom, hidden in documents like a dirty secret. They know he has escaped from the silo, but he has kept largely to the shadows since then. They are all afraid to speak his name, as if it will bring them bad luck.

But what would he want with Mulder? There is little Mulder can offer him, and Marita knows Mulder is itching to hurt Krycek after that sorry business with his father. She pauses in her thoughts briefly to apply some mascara, pleased at the way her pale blue eyes are vivid against the black lashes. She wonders if Mulder dealt Krycek a little damage before he landed himself in hospital. Somewhere along the line they must have struck a truce. But Krycek is far from stupid, and of very little patience, and Marita supposes he must have at least one neat trick tucked up his sleeve.

She pulls a silk scarf around her throat and buttons her jacket. The stop-start dynamics of Mulder and Krycek's relationship fascinates her – the way their paths keep crossing as if the fates were conspiring to keep them together against all expectation. And the way that, despite constantly popping up in each other's crosshair, neither has killed the other yet. Maybe, by the time she reaches Achinsk, that will have changed.

Marita examines herself briefly in the full-length mirror by the bed. The lost button is barely visible. She looks presentable, if not to her usual standards, but it is 3.45am and she will have plenty of time on the flight to make herself pretty. She scoops up her belongings and makes her way downstairs to the foyer, where she knows a cab will already be waiting for her.

*******

Marita reaches Achinsk Regional Hospital in the late afternoon. It is already dark. It has been snowing heavily in Achinsk and her toes ache with the chill. Despite her thick coat she is shivering.

The street is slick with an opalescent layer of well-trodden ice, glittering treacherously under the sickly yellow street lights. The hospital itself is a massacre of stone and concrete, a great mass of flat grey glistening with tiny crystals of ice. It is hideous.

It's no warmer inside, but nobody seems to mind. Doctors walk around seemingly immune to the chill in crisp white shirts. The woman sitting at the reception desk is plump, dark and shiny and reminds Marita of a grape.

"Dobriy den," Marita ventures.

The grape-woman looks up at her with a smile. "Zdravstvujte," she replies. "You are Miss Covarrubias?"

She is taken aback by both the English and the correct identification, but says nothing. In her smart suit and impractical high heeled shoes, she realises she must look unusual. "Yes, I am." she confirms.

The woman seems pleased by this. "Excellent. Mr. Krycek will be ready for surgery in a few hours. He asked to see you when you arrived. Will that be all right?"

"Mr. Krycek...?" What the hell? There must be some mistake, she wants to say, where's Mr. Mulder? But no, she is sure she heard correctly. Marita feels her face contort into a frown and quickly forces herself back into neutrality.

The grape-woman seems to have noticed. "Yes. Is there a problem?"

"No, not at all."

Yes, actually, she thinks. There's a big fucking problem. A man I'm supposed to be hunting down for my boss has summoned me to play nurse for him. I have been travelling for more than half a day and still have no fucking idea why I'm here. I'm cold, damp and tired and if my boss finds out the real reason I'm here I will end up with a bullet in my head and an unmarked grave. So yes, you could say I have a problem.

Marita smiles sweetly. "Where will I find him?"

"Dr. Dauksza will show you." She gestures towards a grey-bearded doctor, who has apparently been standing there the whole time. He nods her a greeting, then asks her to wait while he checks on the patient. Marita smiles hesitantly; the man's expression is stern. There is no warmth in his eyes at all. She wonders how badly Krycek is hurt. She wonders, feeling trepidation growing like a weed in the pit of her stomach, whether he would be able to run if they came for him. She settles in one of the hard plastic seats; it is freezing cold and an unpleasant shiver runs the length of her spine.

Marita is sure Krycek knows he's being hunted, and can't help being pissed at him for calling her all this way. And why her? She doesn't even know him all that well. She can count on one hand the things she really knows about Alex Krycek. She knows that he is roughly six feet one inches tall and has long, elegant legs. She knows he is in his late twenties and can shoot with astonishing accuracy; he is intense in conversation and prefers to skip small talk. And she knows he has chosen her, a member of the organisation that wants him dead, to make sure he wakes up from his surgery, although the 'why' eludes her. Krycek plays his cards so close to his chest that she doubts there is anyone who really knows who he is and what makes him tick.

Dr. Dauksza returns, holding a clipboard in one hand. He gestures to the elevator. "Would you like to see him now?"

They travel in a run-down elevator, creaking as it lurches up to the next floor. Neither says a word. Disembarking, Marita is surprised at how low-key everything is. No armed guard, no police escort. Krycek has done an admirable job of blending in, it seems. Using his real name and all. Either he's feeling bold, or he's too sick to lie. Neither scenario is good.

Dr. Dauksza looks distinctly Arabic and when he speaks, his words are clouded in a thick Lithuanian accent. "Mr. Krycek is very badly injured," he warns, placing himself between Marita and the closed door of Krycek's room. "You may be shocked by his condition."

Marita smiles a wry little smile and thinks oh, if you knew what I've seen...

"I'm sure I can cope fine, thank you." Marita assures, and Dauksza looks almost disappointed, as if he were eagerly anticipating her concern. "Would it be all right if I speak to Mr. Krycek in private?"

"Well," Dauksza says, clutching his clipboard. His lips are pressed tightly together in disapproval, so tight they turn white and disappear into his face. "I will be in my office if you need to speak with me. And please remember that Mr Krycek's surgery is scheduled for this evening, so he must have no food or drink."

"I'm sure I can manage that," Marita says, smiling sweetly, and Dauksza, seemingly appeased, disappears down the dimly-lit hall, clipboard swinging limply at his side.

*******

The hospital room is blindingly white, stuffed to the brim with machines beeping and clattering. His room seems to be the only clean one in the hospital. Ironic, somehow. A filmy blue curtain is drawn around the bed. She wonders if she should ask Krycek's permission, but then feels ridiculous. She gently pulls the curtain back.

Krycek is asleep, or unconscious. He looks awful, the worst she has ever seen him. He is deathly white except for two great blue semicircles beneath his eyes and a feverish flush of pink across his cheeks. Pale blue blankets are pooled around his bare chest, which is a patchwork of wires and splotchy yellow bruising. The sheets around his left arm are stained with old blood, his bandages almost soaked through with fresher, brighter blood. Despite the layers of blankets, he is shivering.

Marita tiptoes forward. Instinctively, Krycek opens his eyes, turns his head slowly to face her. Even lying helpless in a hospital bed far from home, he won't allow himself to switch off for a moment. But his eyes are glazed and uncomprehending, and she feels a pang of what must be pity. It just isn't Krycek's style, pissing in a bedpan and lolling like a newborn. It doesn't suit him.

"Alex," she says in a low voice, and he struggles to match the voice to the blur he sees standing tall at the foot of his bed. His eyes stare blindly at her, searching desperately for something to focus on.

Marita notices that as well as his left arm, his right shoulder is strapped tightly, wrapped in gauze and fastened to his side. He's practically immobile. There is a pitcher of water next to his bed, within reaching distance if he'd been able to use his arms. She wonders if anyone's bothered to check in on him recently. There's a thin film of dust on the pitcher and she realises, with some anger, that he probably hasn't drunk anything since this morning.

"Alex," she says again, and he lurches forward, as if he's trying to sit up. He looks shocked when he realises he can barely move. She takes the seat to his left. The plastic is hard and uncomfortable beneath her. No expenses spared, she thinks, and wants to laugh with the irony of it.

Krycek shies away from her gaze. He looks ashamed, she realises, and doesn't know if she feels sorry for him or thinks he deserves it just a little bit.

"Marita." His voice is sandpaper-rough, barely a rumble in his chest. She feels a sickly heat radiating from his skin and realises he must be running a fever. He smells of sweat and antiseptic fluid and the sharp vinegar tang of fresh blood. He still won't look at her.

"You shouldn't talk." Marita says. He is thinner than she remembers, his cheekbones sharp beneath his eyes. His skin looks taut, paper-thin and ready to tear as it stretches over the contours and angles of his body.

"Thirsty," he rasps. His face is beaded with tiny droplets of sweat, running in cold rivulets down his face and neck. It is minus 25 degrees outside, but he is throwing off so much heat Marita imagines she can see the ice melting off the windows.

Marita shakes her head. "They told me you couldn't drink anything,"

He turns his face to her, imploring. She marvels at the way that a man like Krycek, who can kill a man without flinching, can look at her with such wide-eyed desperation for a sip of water. And she marvels at the way she falls for the act. "Pozhaluysta." he says.

She sighs, and begins to pour him a glass. "When did they last visit you on rounds?"

"Lost track of time. Feels like days." She holds the cup up to his mouth. He drinks greedily, as if he has never tasted water before. It dribbles down his chin, dripping onto the bed. She can feel the heat of him on the back of her hands.

"Okay, enough." She takes the glass away. He raises his right hand, agonisingly slowly, and wipes his mouth. He looks ashamed at his own inability.

"I didn't think you'd show" Krycek says in a low voice, and there's a hint of relief in his tone when he speaks. He hesitates before meeting her gaze. His eyes are sharp and beautiful despite the raw red veins webbing the whites. She wonders why he is being so evasive.

"I didn't know it was you," she tells him, and he nods silently. And then, because she can't bear to sit here dumbly any more, playing nurse while Krycek lies half-dead in a decaying hospital bed "What happened to you, Alex?"

He laughs, his lips curl into a bitter little smile. Marita has never liked that smile. She associates it with moments of violence, dark little moments when Krycek would lose control, just for a minute, and slam his fist into a wall, or launch a furious bilingual tirade upon the object of his wrath. She associates it with North Dakota, when she had found him exhausted and terrified, alone in the darkness. She associates it with the Smoking Man, who can elicit that smile with just a few words.

"Let's call it an unfortunate accident," Krycek responds quietly. The smile evaporates.

"What happened?" Marita presses, but he's not looking at her any more and she knows she won't get an answer, despite all the miles she's travelled and everything she's dropped to be here. She expects this from him. They are hardly close enough to confide in one another, although she's sure that of all his 'colleagues', she is the only one Krycek trusts enough to see him in this state without attempting to kill him.

Krycek struggles to sit up. He rocks back and forth, missing the leverage of his arms. He mutters something to himself in Russian, closing his eyes against Marita's pitying gaze; I don't need you to feel sorry for me, he thinks, and hot, irrational anger pools in the pit of his stomach. All I need from you is to make sure they don't fuck up my surgery, then get me out of here. And then you can go back to New York and I'll be fine. But Marita is still looking at him expectantly, and he feels like he owes her this at least.

"My arm..." he offers, but the words catch in his throat and he can't bring himself to verbalise what exactly has happened to him, as if speaking it aloud will make it real. She raises an eyebrow, the haughty bitch, and he can see in her eyes that she feels entitled to the explanation. I didn't even want you here, he wants to tell her, but you're the only one I think I can trust, so quit acting so inconvenienced.

Marita's eyes travel to his left arm. It's heavily swaddled in stained bandages, tightly bound at the shoulder with an impenetrable-looking knot. She's about to ask him again when she realises, with an awful wave of nausea, that the bandages stop above his elbow, and below them there is blanket and bed but no more limb. Oh Christ, she thinks, and swallows down bile. His arm is gone. Where an elbow would be is instead a bloody mass of white crepe, tightly bound around the stump. She tries to remain composed, but Krycek can see the panic in her eyes, the anxious twitching in her jaw. He exhales, long and hard, and looks down at the empty space where his forearm should be.

"Wasn't a clean cut." he says, barely audible. "It's too late to save it."

She opens her mouth to speak, but everything seems trite in response. 'I'm sorry you lost your arm?' 'Everything's going to be okay?' Christ, she thinks, this is Alex Krycek, not a hysterical woman at a crime scene. Krycek, whose response to a bullet wound is to get back up and keep running until he passes out from shock, or blood loss, or sheer pain. Krycek, for his part, is staring at her as if awaiting her response. The pained look in his eyes is enough for her to realise that anything she says will be inadequate.

"The other arm?" she manages to say.

"Broken shoulder. I rolled off a moving truck. Wish I hadn't bothered." The bitter smile again, except this time it's tempered by a sadness lingering at the corner of his lips. Marita wonders if he ever cries. She shifts uncomfortably in her seat. Suddenly, it feels too warm, her legs are restless and she wants to get up and pace the room, maybe go outside and feel the ice form on her cheeks and crystallise in her hair. She forces herself to stay put.

"They'll be taking me down soon," he says, and she realises he's understood every little movement, every little twitch, and he's offering her a way out. They won't be taking him down for at least a couple of hours. She wishes she could interpret him a little better, but he's still largely a mystery to her.

"Would you prefer it if I left?" she asks, and he is frustratingly nonchalant.

"Don't feel obliged to stay," he offers. That's not a real answer, she thinks, irritated at his obliqueness. But he is staring at her intently, waiting for a definitive answer. He doesn't look tired any more. He looks weary, and sick, and a little bit lost. But she knows that he won't sleep again until the anaesthetic hits him.

"Alex, you called me out here" she reasons, and he scowls at her logic. "You need to tell me what it is you want from me, because otherwise we'll be dancing around each other all night."

"Fine. I..." he lowers himself back into a reclining position, slowly and steadily. The pain in his broken shoulder is intense, but he forces himself to remain impassive. Pain is weakness. "Listen. After they stitch me up or whatever, I've arranged a safe house in St Petersburg. Friend of a friend. I need you to drive me there."

She raises an eyebrow. "Can't you get a cab?"

He laughs, incredulous. "Can't I get a cab? Seriously? You think I've got little money trees growing in my back yard? I'm too sick, Marita. They won't let me out unless someone with a lot of influence convinces them."

"And you thought my UN credentials would be enough?" she sounds pissed off now. Krycek expects she's feeling used.

"I thought I could trust you to get me to St Petersburg alive," Krycek replies curtly. "Can I?"

Her eyes widen. "I'm not a thug for hire, Alex. Not like you."

There's a long, awkward pause. He keeps his eyes locked on her, watching as her jaw twitches in anger. She won't return his gaze. He sighs. He doesn't have the energy for this shit. He is tired to the bone. Every movement he makes uses so much energy he feels like he might pass out.

"I'm sorry," he says at last, and he does sound sorry. "Look. You know I would do this alone if I could. But I've just lost my fucking arm." he lets the gravity of this sentence hang between them like Damocles' sword, and he feels it weigh heavy on his back, like a millstone. He tries to forget about his arm, tries to pretend it wasn't there to begin with. "Marita. I need your help."

Marita softens at this. "Seems like saving your ass is becoming a habit," she says wryly.

"Yeah, well..." he settles back against the pillow. His bones ache – a deep, constant ache, radiating from the very core, and for the first time in his life he wishes he could sleep for the next three days. "I'll owe you a favour."


	2. Chapter 2

See the animal in his cage that you built

Are you sure what side you're on?

Better not look him too closely in the eye

Are you sure what side of the glass you are on?

See the safety of the life you have built

Everything where it belongs

Feel the hollowness inside of your heart

And it's all

Right where it belongs

Right Where It Belongs

Nine Inch Nails

North Dakota was the darkest time he could remember. Even darker than that night by the campfire, lost and cold in the Siberian woods, the knife glowing like a slice of sunlight in the suffocating blackness. Shadows in the trees, flickering in the firelight, holding him down. He could still remember the exact moment the knife had hit bone; a sick, heavy feeling, not in his arm but in his stomach, his head, burning in the back of his throat, his screams lost in the remote Russian forest. He remembered the pain, paralysing and white hot, thick bursts of it with every stroke of the knife, and the one fleeting moment he wished desperately to fall unconscious. He remembered bleeding out onto the grass, helpless and immobile in the cold, watching with detached curiosity as the one armed men disappeared into the trees. He had wondered then if they took his arm with him. When he had woken up at last, his arm hadn't been there. They'd left the knife, though. It was coated with dark blood and fragments of bone. He hadn't been as disturbed by this as he ought to have been.

But despite that, North Dakota had been worse. At least pain can, with determination or unconsciousness, be blocked out. You can never erase the feeling of being emptied, violently and against your will, of a sentient parasite. Admittedly, not many people had experienced it and lived, and that was probably a blessing.

He remembered very little from when the Cancer had been in control. There had been a time, a very short time, that he was aware of himself and aware that he was fighting it. The woman, with her smart heels and shark grin in the airport bathroom. Then intermittent bursts of colour and sound. Blackness, for a long time. And finally the silo.

The space between Hong Kong and North Dakota was one long blank strip of tape. He was distantly aware, like a TV playing in the apartment next door, of snippets of conversations he must have been having. Car headlights, painfully bright in the rear view mirror. That sort of thing. But nothing he could piece together. Nothing that helped him make sense of it.

Dakota had been worse. He had lain, alone and afraid, in the freezing blackness of the silo. The walls stretched upwards for miles, smooth and treacherous, gaping ever upwards like a great schism in the earth. He didn't know what the silo looked liked from above ground. He watched his breath form delicate white clouds, dissipating like ghosts into the gloom, and imagined that he was watching the life physically ebb from him.

Afterwards, when he was feverish and confused and surrounded by apartment walls he didn't recognise, he asked how long he'd been stuck there. Five days, came the answer, matter-of-fact, as if he'd asked for the time. Five days. He hadn't been sure of time passing. He never wore a watch.

What he remembers about North Dakota scares him even now, and he is not easily scared. The screaming agony of Tunguska is a mere bad dream in comparison.

The first memory he had was of something purging from him. He hadn't been able to breathe for it. Thick, viscous fluid, thick in his lungs and nose, pouring in long, pliant strings from his mouth. His airways were blocked with it. For a time, he thought he might die right there, lungs choked with fluid, drowning on dry land. His throat burned and crawled with it.

And then his eyes. His vision was a mess of black, and as he felt the fluid draining from him, from every tiny corner of his face, slow and dragging and agonising, he realised that it was escaping from his fucking eyes. And that was the worst part, worse than choking to death on his own swollen throat, knowing that this thing was crawling out of his eyes, running in thick sludgy rivulets down his cheeks. And he remembered thinking that this must be what it feels like to be raped; that hideous creeping sensation of being pulled and dragged from the inside out, prying without your consent.

Afterwards, laying inert and exhausted on the cold steel (aluminium? Iron? Was it even metal?) he felt a terrible emptiness. That's what he can still feel most keenly, what terrifies him in those rare vulnerable moments, that intense feeling of missing something from deep inside, as if he had just vomited out his stomach. He didn't believe in souls, but he supposed that, if souls existed, that would be how it felt to lose one. That wrenching, tearing pain, radiating from your very core, haemorrhaging violently and leaking arterial blood from your nose, eyes, mouth, ears, except that it's not blood but something solid and physical and desperately painful. And all around, choking darkness, smooth concrete walls with no beginning or end, and the bitterness of knowing you're going to die here alone, a tiny speck in a black chasm.

He doesn't like being confined now. He doesn't like being cuffed or shut away. It makes him panic, makes him claustrophobic. He refuses to admit it to anyone.

For the next five days he had alternated between sick, feverish sleep and futile bouts of screaming, smashing fists against the door, grinding his knuckles against the metal until they bled.

On the third day, he had tried, like a fool, to scale the walls of the silo. His hands were shaky and scabbed over and he was weak with sickness and starvation. There were no handholds. His fingers had scraped and scrabbled at the concrete for hours, and he'd never gotten off the ground. He'd screamed and cursed as his fingernails began to split. Sometimes he found it in himself to laugh a little at that memory. Now it hurt just to remember he'd once had two arms, and even so they'd been fucking useless in a crisis.

He'd stopped feeling hungry on the fourth day, the ferocious stabs deep in his stomach replaced by a pervading nausea. Sometimes he'd find himself retching, great spasming heaves, but nothing ever passed his lips. The pain of it would knock him senseless. He'd been grateful for the unconsciousness. Waking hours came with bizarre hallucinations. His mother, melting into the floor when he reached for her. A hollow-eyed dog, huge and silent, following him as tried to crawl away. A great swirling blue sun crossing the blackness where he supposed the sky would be, had he not been trapped hundreds of feet underground.

He'd been semi-conscious when they came for him. Laying on his side like a dead cat in the road, breathing shallowly, hands gnarled into claws, stuck together with dried blood. The door creaked open with a long, drawn-out whine. He hadn't the energy to lift his head. Their silhouettes were elongated in the dim light of the corridor. At first, he thought the aliens had come for their ship, for the oil-thing, and he smirked bitterly to himself as he pressed his face hard against the floor. Hopefully they'd kill him. The thought of being trapped inside that contraption, sitting still and silent like an ancient monolith in the centre of the silo…the thought of what they might do to him…

He didn't want any part of that.

The silhouettes settled as his eyes had adjusted to the sudden burst of light. They were human. Three of them. Maybe the Smoking Man had thrown him a bone and sent some men to kill him. They had approached him slowly, as if he were a cornered animal, a coiled cobra ready to strike. He had been amused at this. He could barely lift his arm, let alone throw a punch. He wasn't sure how long a man could go without water but he was sure that it wasn't much longer than this.

The first person to come into focus was a woman. Tall, pale skin. Blonde hair glowing like a corona in the dark. He couldn't make out her features, but her voice was familiar. "He's alive", she murmured to someone. Then, to him, "Can you stand?" Like an idiot he'd told her yes, of course I can stand. So she stood back and he tried desperately to get to his feet, but his legs weren't co-operating. He struggled on to his hands and knees, panting with the effort of it. His limbs shook beneath him, unable to hold his weight. He was about to collapse to the floor when another person, a man this time, had placed a strong arm around his middle, lifting him gently to his feet. He was dimly aware that he could barely feel his legs. Another man moved towards him, supporting his left side.

Crossing the room felt like running a marathon. He'd always been a reasonably fit man but suddenly lifting his feet took gargantuan effort. The two men said nothing as they all but carried him to the door, where other people were assembled. In the unwelcome brightness, he couldn't make out features. They were a mess of dark colours and textures, barely human in his confusion. Someone had brought a stretcher and he was gently lowered on to it. It was rough canvas but after the cold concrete it might have been a warm bed somewhere safe. He couldn't have been sure that he was really in the silo. It could have been a hotel room, or a hospital, or his own bed in his own apartment. The people milling around him and shouting orders might have been part of a dream. Someone…it was a woman, a different one this time…told him they were taking him to a hospital, and he laughed and told her he didn't need to go to the hospital, he was in his apartment and they'd all be gone when he woke up.

When he woke up, everyone was indeed gone. His head ached like a rotten tooth. He didn't recognise the room he was in. It wasn't like any hospital he'd ever known, although given his tendency to self-medicate, he wasn't as familiar with hospitals as perhaps he ought to have been. There were lines and wires taped to his arms, IV drips pumping clear liquid into his veins. Inherently suspicious, he had considered pulling out the IV lines, disconnecting the wires. They'd left him to die deep underground. It didn't make sense that they were now trying to keep him alive.

He slept dreamlessly for what must have been days. Sometimes, in the rare moments he spent awake, he had been distantly aware of someone sitting across the room from him. He couldn't make out who, but he thought it might have been the blonde woman from the silo. He supposed they would have killed him already if they were going to. Someone really was keeping him alive.

***************

Some time later, when his fever had dissipated and he felt well enough to eat and converse, he asked the blonde women why she hadn't killed him.

She told him they (and he had known without ever being told that 'they' referred to Smoky and co) had asked for his body to be disposed of as well as the removal of the 'artefact'. She had expected to find him dead. "You must be very resilient," she told him. She didn't smile very often. She had a permanent look of the hunted about her. Her apartment - he assumed it was hers, it smelled unmistakeably female - was always quiet, the curtains always drawn, lights always dimmed. He wondered who she was hiding from.

He told her that she would have been better off killing him. She smiled then, a pained smile, and explained that they would never find out she had spared him. She did not intend to volunteer that information. And - her tone had grown cold and he supposed she was trying, in her own way, to intimidate him - since she had in fact saved his life, it was the least she ought to expect from him, keeping this secret. He had switched on the charm then, assuring her that he would not tell another living soul of what she had done for him. They parted ways that night satisfied with the arrangement.

In the days that followed she had told him a little about herself. Her name was Marita Covarrubias. Her father was a diplomat born in Valencia, her mother a Swedish journalist. She was vague about what it was she did for a living, although it was clear by her décor and antique furniture that she brought home a good pay check. She mentioned that she played the flute but refused to show him. "I'm not here to entertain you," she had said, and that was that.

For his part, he had revealed very little - just his name. They talked about New York - she'd told him that her apartment was somewhere in the city - and he explained that he didn't make a habit of staying in one place for too long, so he had seen rather a lot of the US by now. They didn't mention Smoky or the others, although the subject hung between them, ever the elephant in the room.

He was no longer sick and incapable, though. Now he was twitchy and nervous, a bristling ball of paranoia, and he knew she had noticed. She seemed to understand. He was not accustomed to recuperating in beds that weren't his, in apartments he didn't recognise, much less apartments belonging to mysterious women who'd rescued him. As his strength grew, so did his need to get away. Marita mostly left him to his own devices, which he appreciated - he didn't like being seen in such a pathetic state. He didn't like to show weakness. Weakness made him a target. So did staying here.

After the third day at the apartment he found that he could move around without pain, and that was a good enough reason to get moving again. His senses felt sharp again. He pulled out his IV line, dressed in the clean clothes she had left for him, stuffing the rest of his things into a holdall. He folded the sheets, left them neatly stacked on the end of the bed, a cursory attempt at thanking her for her hospitality.

She wasn't home. He scribbled her a note on the back of an envelope, left it propped up on her coffee table - _I owe you. Thanks for everything. A - Her living room had been still and dark when he crept away, closing the door quietly behind him, wincing at the click of the long springing back into place._

_When she had returned, she was not surprised to see him gone. She was curiously relieved to be rid of him, though - the stranger in her back room who had told her his name and nothing else, who had stared at her with such mistrust and apprehension that she had been sure he though she might kill him at any time. For the first time in days, she slept soundly, without the nagging fear that there would be a knock at her door and it would all be over for both of them._


	3. Chapter 3

**As they dragged me to my feed**

**I was filled with incoherence**

**Theories of conspiracy**

**The whole world wants my disappearance**

**I'll go fighting nail and teeth**

**You've never seen such perseverance**

**Going to make you scared of me**

**'Cause haemoglobin is the key**

**Haemoglobin**

**Placebo**

Marita comes to see Krycek the day after his surgery. She figures he'll appreciate the breathing space afforded by a day alone, but when she walks in, brushing snow from her shoulders, he doesn't say anything to her. He watches her silently as she places a bag on the bedside cabinet, removes her coat and hangs it up to dry. The whole time he is still, and it unnerves her.

"I brought some food," she says, gesturing towards the bag. He glances at it, then at her. His eyes are a dark and gloomy green, unblinking.

"I got a call from my contact in St. Petersburg," he says finally, his voice a low monotone. He looks far less sick than two days ago, but his forehead is still beaded with sweat, and the dark circles beneath his eyes haven't budged. Marita stares impassively at him, noticing that his lips are tinged with blue. "Did you know that our British friend is looking for me?"

His tone is aggressive in a quiet, dangerous way. Suddenly he is a cornered fox, growling a warning, ready to tear at the throat. She knows he can spot a liar from miles away, can taste the most benign of lies like a snake tastes fear.

"He asked me to find you," she says, and she can see the first cracks in his composure start to form. His jaw twitches, eyes narrow by the smallest margin. His poker face is remarkable. "But he is under the impression that I am out here on UN business. Finding you is a secondary task."

"Looks like you have conflicting interests," Krycek says, barely audible.

Marita fixes him with a stare, unmoved by his anger. He is practically immobile, wounded and sick and, though under normal circumstances he could floor her with one blow, she knows she is in charge now. "I have no intention of acting on his demands, Alex," she says coolly, and he offers a bitter little laugh in response.

Her eyes narrow, becoming hard little blue marbles. She knows he doesn't trust her, and she doesn't expect him to. But after dropping everything to baby-sit him it smarts a little to be brushed off so easily. She's still searching for her next sentence when Krycek struggles to his feet. He is unsteady and braces himself against the wall, the pain in his shattered shoulder intense. The blankets pool at his feet. He yanks angrily at his IV lines and they slither out of his arm, leaking liquid onto the floor.

Marita is momentarily stunned.

"I can get to St. Petersburg without you," he hisses, but he can barely stand and she can see it is killing him just to stay upright. Part of her wants to laugh, but he's breathing through clenched teeth and she can see a pained scream building up in his chest. "Alex, get back into bed."

He ignores her. The hospital pants are loose around his hips and she can see, for the first time, how thin he looks now, the slender curve of his back betraying every vertebra. "Alex, you're sick. Please get back into bed."

"Don't insult my intelligence, Marita." He gropes blindly for his coat, cursing aloud when he realises the nurses have thrown his clothes away - too much blood to wash out, and he dimly remembers that the left sleeve of the coat had been severed along with his arm. He can feel sweat streaming down his face. He wonders if his arm is still there, sheathed in a khaki sleeve, bleeding slowly into the pink-stained snow. Marita is staring at him as if he is an idiot, or crazy, or both. Her hair is gelled back into that infuriatingly perfect arch of pale blonde, her makeup immaculate. Her appearance incenses him. She's sculpted and painted up like a whore and he's losing half his body weight in sweat, bandaged and bruised and missing a goddamn arm. She is taunting him with her perfection, with her wholeness.

Rage boils up inside him like hot bile in his stomach. His muscles are tense and nervous and he wants to run or lash out, anything that will rid him of this burst of violent energy. Against his better judgement, he thumps his fist hard against the wall. The pain ricochets through his arm, dances across his shattered shoulder and goes scattering like white hot bullets through his body. It hurts so much and so sharply that for a second he is convinced his heart is going to burst, his ribs are caving in against his lungs and no breath can fill them. His knees buckle beneath him and suddenly he is on the floor. The linoleum is cold against his feverish skin.

Marita darts across the room as he collapses. She's at his side before he even realises he's fallen. She fights back the urge to yell at him. He is stubborn beyond belief and although she expects this kind of bull-headed behaviour from him it doesn't ease the frustration she feels. Krycek isn't usually full of macho bullshit, she reminds herself, but you'd be forgiven for thinking otherwise…

"Alex," she says, commanding. He's staring fixedly at the floor, counting the scuffmarks. Still refusing to admit defeat despite the fact he's dribbling dark blood from all three IV sites and has all but rendered himself immobile. "I'm going to help you stand."

He doesn't respond, but his eyes meet hers for a brief moment and she knows that in his own silent, reproachful way he is thanking her. She loops her arms under his chest, feeling the press of his ribs against her skin, the conspicuous absence of a left arm. "Okay. Raz…dva…tree."

He lets out a little whine of effort as he gets laboriously to his feet, and Marita wonders if he has ever let anyone else see him so vulnerable. He stumbles over to the bed and she helps him lay back down. She picks the blankets up from where they lay on the floor and realises they are dotted with pinkish smears of blood. His arm has stopped bleeding now, but there are dark runnels of dried blood crusted to his skin like crude tattoos.

He closes his eyes against her stare. Her eyes are fierce and her mouth is set into a thin line, disapproving and concerned in equal parts. He doesn't want to hear the lecture he knows is trapped just behind her lips.

She restrains herself. "Alexei," she sighs, sitting down. He stiffens instinctively at the use of his full name; he hates the way it sounds in her mouth, so American and contrived. "How can you be so sharp in one breath and so stupid in the next?"

"Nothing stupid about saving your own ass," he mutters. The agony in his right arm has started to subside now. He can feel each individual bone fragment pulsing against another, a sick ache pounding all the way down to his ankles. She's right, of course, he is stupid. He has set his own healing progress back by god knows how long. He lost control and now Marita knows there are sizeable chinks in his armour. He knows she is clever enough to exploit that if she chooses.

He glances over at her. She is cleverly impassive as always. Her long legs are crossed. He wonders idly if she's wearing stockings.

"I don't intend to turn you in," she says.

He eyes her carefully. Her poker face is outstanding. "Oh?"

She shrugs. "You called me first. You're my priority."

"And if the Brit had called?"

Marita regards him coolly. "He didn't."

He inhales. It hurts deep in his chest. "Marita, I need to know I can trust you."

"There isn't a thing in the world I can say to convince you of that." Her pragmatism is painful. He looks away. It always comes down to this, he and Marita. They circle each other like wolves, keeping a safe distance, testing each other until one snaps and the other runs. Smooth talk doesn't work on her - she is too aloof and too haughty to be charmed. She has never seen him lose his cool until today, and he wonders whether he's already lost the first round.

"Will you come to St. Petersburg with me?" he asks.

She takes a long time to answer. He closes his eyes, concentrating on the rhythmic throb of his broken shoulder. He counts to twenty five before she speaks again.

"I'll stay with you until you're well enough to fend for yourself." For the first time since she arrived in Achinsk there is a little warmth in her tone. Krycek realises then that she never intended to abandon him here. She's been toying with him. There's a merry little sparkle in her eyes and he scowls. Haughty fucking bitch. He stares at her, unblinking, as she rifles through her handbag. He catches a glimpse of a silver lipstick tube, a hotel key card. Pointless, mundane items. He can't bring himself to trust this woman, who travels business class everywhere she goes, who buys expensive antique books she doesn't read. And yet she is all he has right now. He wants to laugh at this farce of a situation but it doesn't seem funny, not really.

Krycek looks down at his arm. His skin is pockmarked with needle holes and ridges of tacky, half-dried blood. "I need my IV's replaced," he says flatly.

"You do," Marita concurs. She has lost interest with her handbag and is now rifling through the bag of food she has brought. "When was the last time you ate anything, Alex? You look like you weigh less than I do."

He shrugs, as if eating isn't important. "Had some soup yesterday."

She frowns, and he's about to snap at her when a nurse knocks politely on the door. She is tiny, a little bird of a woman, pebbly eyes behind round-rimmed glasses. Her name badge says 'Vorobyova'. Krycek almost smiles at this irony.

She notices the tangle of IV lines on the floor and pitter-patters across the room. She says nothing but glares at Krycek as if he were a troublesome child caught drawing on the walls with red crayon.

"Ne delai bol'she tak," the nurse scolds. Krycek looks genuinely apologetic as Nurse Vorobyova scuttles to and fro, reattaching his IV lines and tucking in his blankets. He wants to swat her away but despite her fragility she is tough and efficient.

"Izvini," he says, and she seems appeased by this. He grimaces as the saline IV begins to sting. He wants to laugh at the irony. Alexei Krycek, who can take a bullet in the thigh and keep running, who can crawl for miles despite losing an arm, and here he is, wishing the needle would stop fucking stinging…

Marita regards him with a smile in her eyes, and he realises with surprise that he has never really paid attention to the colour before - a pale blue-green, the colour of Siberian winter, of glacial ice. He usually has a keen eye for detail.

When Nurse Vorobyova leaves, the nervous pitter-patter of her feet growing ever quieter, Krycek settles back against the pillow, feeling the familiar ache in his bones as he relaxes.

"Shall I start making travel arrangements?" she asks him as she stands.

He nods. "It's a big apartment so there'll be room for you too. If you need a cover story to fool our British friend I can have that arranged too."

"You overestimate how much power he has over me," she says wryly, and she shrugs her coat back on over her shoulders, gathers her things. He watches her as she stands and smiles, infuriatingly self assured as ever. "You don't need to cover for me, Alex. My day job can do that."

Russian glossary:

Raz, Dva, Tree – One, Two, Three

Vorobyova – a Russian name derived from the word 'Vorobey', meaning 'Sparrow'

Ne delai bol'she tak – 'Don't do that again'

Izvini – I'm sorry


	4. Chapter 4

With the lights out and the night inside

The broken radio was playing suicide

I felt myself falling, I confessed to you

I saw a body, you said you'd seen a few

This night has only just begun

If there's discretion that you'd not abandon

Now's the time

We'll burn against the morning sun

Go grab your bag, I'll bring the gun

"End Transmission"

AFI

December 1995

One year ago

They meet for the second time in December 1995. New York is grey and windy and the buildings glow gently in the black night, windows crammed with baubles and tinsel glittering like brightly coloured stars. They don't mean to cross paths but it is somehow inevitable and, when Marita spots him in the crowd outside the Rockefeller Center, watching as the Christmas lights are turned on, she realises she expected him to be there.

The lights go on and the falling snowflakes are cast with gold as they flutter past the Christmas tree. There is a round of applause and the crowd begins to scatter. The reverent silence gives way to bursts of conversation all around. Marita looks up at the tree, branches reaching up into the starless sky. Somewhere in the distance an ambulance wails, speeding through the night. She looks back at Krycek but he's not there anymore, replaced by an abundantly plump blonde woman and her enthralled children gazing up at the tree, all clasped hands and bright smiles. She wraps her scarf tighter around her cold throat and turns to leave when she feels a hand on her shoulder. Marita turns. Krycek looks down at her, unsmiling. His eyes catch the light from the Christmas tree.

"I didn't think you were the sentimental type," she says. He looks taller than she remembers him, even though she's wearing impractically tall heels.

"I'm full of surprises" he says wryly. She regards him for a moment, comparing him to the sickly invalid she housed only a month ago. He's wearing a worn leather jacket and jeans. He looks healthy. "Tis the season, or whatever."

She is unconvinced. "You're not here for the Christmas lights."

"No, I'm not," he agrees. He is looking over her shoulder, scanning the crowd. She follows his gaze. He zeroes in on a thin blonde woman, short skirt and long leather boots. Her lips are painted a gaudy red. She's beautiful in an inorganic way. _No surprise there_, Marita thinks, watching as the woman turns away from them. Her limbs are long and pale in the dark.

"Nice seeing you again," he says without looking at her. He moves forward, his hand unclipping something from his belt. Marita sees, as he pushes through the crowd, the flash of black steel and she realises he's got a gun. _Jesus._ She's stunned.

Marita follows him, weaving between people who haven't even noticed Krycek, let alone the gun. The ground beneath her is slick with ice and she stumbles as she walks, holding her coat together with one hand and pushing gently through with the other.

He is taller than most of the crowd and she keeps track of him right up until the crowd thins out on 5th Avenue. She scans the empty street for him but there's nobody there. Snow swirls and dances in the wind. She begins to walk slowly, wary at her isolation.

A hand pulls roughly at her shoulder, tugging her into a dark side street. She instinctively lashes out, swivels on her heels as she punches. Krycek catches her ineffective little fist in one hand. His eyes are fierce. "What the hell are you doing, Marita?"

"You had a gun," she says, pulling herself free. She steps away from him, still shaken. She's angry with him for surprising her. "I should ask you the same question."

He sighs a little. He's holding the gun in his other hand, she notices, neatly pressed against his thigh, barely noticeable. Evidently well practised. "I don't think it's any of your business."

"Perhaps not," she concedes, still angry. Her breath is a white cloud in the freezing air. Krycek seems not to have noticed the cold. "What did she do?"

"Who?" He's scanning the streets again. She wonders where the blonde went.

"The blonde woman. The one you're chasing."

"I'm not chasing any woman." He sounds irritated at her questions. "Listen, this might be a dangerous situation. You should go home."

"I'm not a child, Alex," she sulks, realising how childlike she actually sounds. He's right. This is none of her business. She knows little about Krycek but she knows why Smoky kept him on the payroll for so long. She remembers, just after the missile silo, standing in the boardroom listening to him offering backhanded eulogies about the man he presumed to be dead. _He was one of the finest murderers_, he had told her, a little smug. _Good clean kills. Did as he was told. You can't buy that kind of class._

He stares at her, deadpan. "But you are wearing ridiculous shoes. You won't be able to run in those if you need to. And I doubt you're bulletproofed tonight."

She's unmoved by his practicality. "Fine. I take your point. Thank you for looking out for me, Alex." She shoves her hands back in her pockets, feeling demeaned by his too-candid assessment of her. "If I don't see you, have a wonderful Christmas."

He's about to respond when, from out of nowhere, the dry crack of pistol fire explodes in the silent street. A bullet ricochets neatly off the wall two inches shy of Marita's shoulder. Krycek wraps his arm around her, pulls her roughly to the ground. She feels the heel of her shoe snap as she tumbles to the floor, landing sprawled beneath him.

Krycek scrambles behind a dumpster, pulling her with him just as another bullet smashes into the brickwork. He wraps both arms around her, shielding her from fragments of brick. She feels his heart hammering against his chest and realises he's scared. Somehow this surprises her. Krycek has always seemed so unflappable.

"Goddamit," Krycek hisses, clutching his gun. He relaxes his grip on her, holding the gun two-handed. She pulls free of his clumsy embrace as he shuffles to the edge of the dumpster. He motions for her to stay where she is, muttering "Drop your guard for one fucking second…"

"Who is she?" Marita whispers. The ground is hard and damp and terribly uncomfortable but she hardly dares to breathe. She hears the click of the trigger as Krycek fires a blind shot into the distance. He waits for the inevitable response but there is none. He looks at Marita, wild-eyed and breathless.

"Radojka Zivanovic. Serbian bitch." He ducks forward, fires another shot into the black. In the distance, a dog starts barking, startled by the noise. "Trafficks little kids into the country."

"Is that worth shooting her for?" Marita asks.

He stares at her for a moment.

"You don't want to know what they do to those kids," he says finally. He slowly gets to his feet, crouching just below the top of the dumpster. He quickly glances over, ducking his head down just in time to dodge a third bullet. Chunks of cement fly overhead again, scattering like confetti on the ground.

Krycek remains half-crouched for a moment. Gravel crunches beneath his feet, and Marita can see bright blood dripping onto his leather jacket.

"Jesus," she breathes, scrambling to her feet. "Are you hurt?"

"I'm fine," he hisses. "Get back down."

"You're bleeding!" Marita exclaims. Blood dribbles down his face; his hair is black with it. She reaches a hand to his shoulder. He turns sharply, grabbing her wrist. She gasps as he pushes her against the dumpster, staring down at her with wild eyes. A thin, dark stream runs down his face, pooling in the hollow of his shoulder. For the first time she is afraid of him, of the power he has over her, and although he is holding her wrist gently, although the warmth of him is almost pleasant, she is horribly aware of how dangerous Alex Krycek can be.

"Stop putting yourself in danger." he says quietly. He loosens his grip on her wrist. She breathes deep, pulling her wrist to her chest as if hurt. He's so close she can smell the sharp tang of blood as it runs down his cheek.

"Alex. Your head…"

"Forget it, it's just debris." Krycek dismisses. He is about to wipe the blood away when they both hear the sound of feet hitting concrete. He snaps his head around just in time to see Zivanovic take aim. In one swift movement, he raises his gun and fires a single bullet. It slams into her abdomen, throwing her violently backwards. Black blood sprays outward like a firework, spattering the street with a thousand tiny poppies. She yelps in pain, collapsing to her hands and knees.

"Stay here," Krycek commands, calmer now. He moves cautiously forward, his gun level with her head. Marita is frozen to the spot. She is not unaccustomed to brutality but, as she watches Krycek circle Zivanovic, plucking her gun out of her hand with almost arrogant ease, she realises she is a long way out of her depth.

Zivanovic coughs a mouthful of bright arterial blood onto the ground. It stains her lips and teeth like a predator caught at the kill, dribbling down her chin.

"Izvinite," he says quietly, and he does sound sorry.

The woman stares at him reproachfully. Her hands grasp desperately at her stomach, as if trying to force the blood back in. It spills through her fingers, pooling on the ground. Marita watches with rapt horror. For a second, her eyes meet Zivanovic's. They are full to the brim with helpless anger, imploring her to stop staring and fucking _help_.

Krycek stops pacing. He holds his gun in his right hand, Zivanovic's gun in his left. "I'll make this quick," he says. And he does. It happens in a split second. All Marita sees is Krycek step back and Zivanovic slump to the ground, a gaping black hole between her sightless eyes. There is blood everywhere, huge gouts of it running in rivulets between the paving slabs, staining the powdery snow a deceptively pretty pink. A spent bullet case falls to the ground in slow motion. Marita waits for it to clatter to the ground movie-style, but it falls soundlessly, glittering like something precious in the yellow light of the sodium lamps. She has seen death before, but never this close, never this real.

Krycek turns to her, impassive and stained only with his own blood. His head wound is still bleeding steadily but it seems so insignificant now, so small. He throws Zivanovic's Glock carelessly to the ground, tucks his own gun back in his waistband. He is so casual it almost angers her.

"That should have been cleaner," he says. He looks tired, as if the act of shooting Zivanovic between the eyes was a particularly laborious task.

"You didn't have to kill her," Marita responds, a little petulant.

There is a ghost of a smile about his lips. Her naivety should infuriate him, but somehow it is charming. She stands with her hands in her pockets, her lips pursed, her eyebrows knotted. She is a postcard of childish anger. And yet he can see by the hardness in her eyes that she's no stranger to this. He marvels quietly at how untroubled she seems by the blood running in thick streams along the ground.

His wounded head has started to throb in the cold. "I'd rather not bore you by telling you exactly why that whore deserved worse than I gave her."

She stares at him, perplexed by his arrogance. From somewhere in the distance, the low wail of sirens burst into life.

"This isn't all you are," she tells him, as if she has known him all her life.

He visibly bristles at her approximation. "You don't know that," he responds.

Marita looks down at Zivanovic, slumped over in the prayer position. Her blonde hair is matted with blood, her arms stretched out in front of her, grasping at the cold concrete. Her gun lays discarded inches from her fingers, mocking her.

"If I hadn't killed her," Krycek says, running a hand through his bloody hair, "she would have killed me. And she would have killed you."

She is still looking at Zivanovic, feeling guilt bloom in her stomach like a sickness, when she feels his hand on her wrist. She expects him to grab her again but he is gentle. He tugs at her arm, willing her silently to look away. The woman looks smaller in death, somehow less than she was, as if something important has withered and disappeared.

"Marita," he says, almost soothingly, and she turns to him in surprise. Alex Krycek; murderer, mercenary and now confidante. She isn't completely sure she finds this amusing. "Go home. You shouldn't have seen this."

"You're just going to leave her?"

He raises an eyebrow. "Well, I'm not taking her home. So I guess so."

She is silent. She knows now that she doesn't belong in his world. And although this realisation doesn't surprise her, she still feels curiously disappointed. He releases her wrist, his fingers trailing across her skin, feather light. "There'll be cops here soon. Go home. Get some sleep. Forget about it."

Marita looks up at him. He is almost too calm. A woman lies dead at his feet and he is more concerned about her emotional fragility than what he has just done. The street lights flicker sleepily overhead, casting their shadows long and distorted across the ground. For the first time, he smiles.

"Have a good Christmas," he says.


	5. Chapter 5

Sparks ignite and trade them for thought

About no one

And nothing in particular

Washed the sickened socket and drove

Resent nothing

There's good will inside of me

Wake me up, lower the fever

Walking in a straight line

Set me on fire in the evening

Everything will be fine

Wake me up strong in the morning

Walking in a straight line

Lately I'm a desperate believer

But walking in a straight line

Straight Lines

Silverchair

Marita has been driving for four hours. Night fell three hours ago and she feels as if she has been driving through a thick, featureless black fog, occasionally punctuated by the flickering yellow lights of a nearby town. Krycek sits in the passenger seat, wrapped in an afghan blanket with his head resting against the window. He is sleeping fitfully, shivering and fighting against the seatbelt. She wonders what he's dreaming of.

They are about an hour from St Petersburg. They passed the Finnish border some time ago. Their plane landed in Helsinki in the midst of a snowstorm. The snow has since thinned out, giving way to darkening grey skies and now thick darkness punctuated by drizzling rain. Krycek has slept since they started driving, and Marita has filled the silence with pessimistic musings on their situation.

The British man's men are stationed in St Petersburg, although Krycek seems less alarmed by this than perhaps he should. For her part, she is filled with sick apprehension. It would take very little to find them, less still to kill them. The gun tucked neatly in the glove box of the rattling, tired rental car comforts her somewhat. That Krycek would probably be unable to even lift a gun right now is a problem she would prefer to ignore.

She casts a sideways glance at Krycek as she drives. He looks strangely childlike in the low light, lips moving gently as he murmurs in Russian. He's speaking too incoherently for her to understand. She wishes he would wake up. Driving for hours in pitch darkness is an acutely lonely experience. She has never realised before how oppressive four hours of silence can be. The radio seems incapable of picking up anything but white noise. Still, she has contemplated switching it on just for the sake of a little sound.

She hasn't yet figured out what she'll do when they get to St Petersburg. The official plan is simple enough - get to the safe house, stock up on supplies, Marita goes home, Alex sweats it out for a few weeks until he rides out the worst of the sickness. Or dies. Either outcome should suit Marita, who has to remind herself that she is absconding from both her official and unofficial duties to continue this little adventure. And yet, despite the intense cold locking her fingers to the steering wheel, despite her eyes being on stalks and her bones aching to the marrow every time she thinks of the warm bed she left behind, she doesn't care at all for the latter scenario.

Krycek stirs. She hears him rearranging his limbs beneath the afghan, mumbling complaints as he tries to allay the terrible ache in his legs and arm. _Arm_. The thought appears unbidden in her mind and she's struck by how alien it feels. Arm, singular. She hasn't really confronted this concept yet and she doesn't feel ready to. While he's wrapped in the thick blanket, she can pretend he has both arms intact, that he's the same Alex Krycek she knew before Achinsk. She wonders how he has kept it together this long, whether he feels the same violent emptiness she feels when she thinks of what he's lost. She wonders if Krycek ever allows himself to feel that way.

"Where are we?" he asks. His voice is thick with sleep, low and gravelly. He peers lazily up at her with half-lidded eyes. In different circumstances, she might have found this curiously sexy.

"We passed Zelenogorsk a little while ago," she says. She doesn't want to tell him she has lost track of time, that she has considered driving deliberately over potholes just to jolt him awake and have some damn company. "I wish you'd been awake, Alex. I drove right by the Gulf of Finland. It was beautiful."

He grunts, seemingly in approval.

"How are you feeling?" she asks, struck by how inadequate this question seems.

"Like I've just been hit by a truck," he responds.

She pauses to look at him. He looks tired, despite having woken only to transfer from car to plane and back again. His face is flushed and she knows he's running a fever again. She hopes there will be a pharmacy open when they finally arrive.

"You should be in a hospital right now," she admonishes.

"Just drive, Marita," he snaps. "I don't need your mommy complex right now."

She doesn't respond, just keeps driving, expressionless. He hurts from the very core, an obscene, all-enveloping sort of pain, and she thinks he wants her opinion? He's astounded by her idiocy. He gingerly pulls the blanket tighter around him with his right arm, shivering despite its warmth. _If I wanted to be in the fucking hospital, Marita, I wouldn't have wasted my time calling you all this way. _He takes a long, deep breath, pushing the rising anger back down. Waste of damn energy, he thinks, resting his forehead against the cool window. He closes his eyes.

He looks up at Marita's reflection in the window. She looks desperately tired. Her blue eyes are red raw and her makeup is smeared beneath her eyes as if she has been crying. Her hands are clasped tightly around the steering wheel, arms tense. She's ready to snap. He can see the muscles in her jaw twitching as she swallows down the angry tirade she had been about to level at him. Her lips are pressed together so hard they are a thin white line. He suddenly feels like an awful human being, snapping at her when she has probably been going quietly insane with the cold and loneliness. Perhaps it would have been better if she had yelled at him, he thinks. Hell, he deserves it.

"Izvini menya," he says, barely a whisper. And as he watches her, her expression softens. He wonders why he finds it so hard to say it in English.

"You can be a real asshole," she sighs. She sounds more disappointed than upset. Somehow, this makes him feel worse. He wonders what kind of expectations she must have of him, to think he could be capable of anything less.

"I know," he tells her. _God, _he thinks. _What the fuck is wrong with me? _"Mari," he implores, turning his face to her, hoping he looks sick and pathetic enough to win her over. _You're a total shit, Alex Krycek. _"Izvini menya."

He looks over at her. The corners of her lips are turned up in a gentle, tired smile. She doesn't say anything but he knows he is forgiven, at least for now.

* * *

He dreams they are standing on the rocks at Zelenogorsk. The sky is black except for a spattering of pale yellow stars, glowing a little too brightly. He notices that the sea is still. There are no waves hissing against the shore, no gentle undulation of the water in the moonlight. It's peculiarly beautiful in an awful, unnatural way and the stars burn vividly in the water like lanterns floating.

And then the stars start dancing. They sweep across the sky leaving feathery vapour trails, pale finger-smudges against the black. They curl around each other in great meandering loops, each chasing the other until they become a great blazing comet, swooping en masse towards the earth, a dazzling disco ball descending towards them at great speed.

The sea ripples and hisses as they descend, recoiling like a frightened animal. They are not stars, he realises, but great, silent grey ships, growing larger and brighter until his eyes sting with their radiance. The heat of them is obscene. Great plumes of steam rise from the ocean as they hover above the surface, shielding them in haze. He reaches for Marita and wraps his arms protectively around her, protecting her face from the searing heat with his hands. Both hands. Both arms, whole and human. But he can feel his skin start to melt, seeping from his bones with hideous ease. It's a curiously painless experience. He tightens his grip on Marita, feeling the reassuring wholeness of her in his arms, the softness of her skin intact against his chest as he feels the flesh fall in lumps from his face. She is trembling, and as the sight fades slowly from his eyes and his teeth crumble to dust in his mouth, he manages to mumble "It's going to be okay. Ia obishaiu."

* * *

Krycek wakes with a start. He is coated in sweat and for an awful moment he wonders if his skin really is melting from his bones. The room is dark and cool and he looks, panicked, to his arms for clarity. His right arm is tightly bandaged to the elbow, but below the white crepe is flesh and skin. He exhales slowly. _You fucking idiot_ he thinks, angry at his inability to tell fiction from reality.

He turns to his left arm, squinting in the dim light. He feels a sharp stab of disappointment deep in his gut. He feels it every time he looks to his arm and realises it's gone. Sometimes he still feels his arm, unconsciously tries to reach out with it. Sometimes he imagines he can feel the blankets beneath his fingers, so real he feels like he can pinch the fabric. He does not like his senses betraying him this way. He looks away from the empty space once occupied by his left arm and turns his attention back to the limb he still has.

Just shy of his right hand, Marita sleeps in a chair at his bedside. He supposes she must have fallen asleep while looking after him. He's oddly touched by the thought of it. Her pale hair fans out like a palm frond across the bedclothes, her head pillowed awkwardly on her hands. He watches the rhythmic rise and fall of her back as she breathes, a little awed by her complete vulnerability. That she trusts him enough to switch off like this, not only in his presence but right next to him is the closest thing to a compliment anyone has ever given him. He wants to laugh at the absurdity of the idea.

"Marita," he whispers. His throat feels dry and raw and his voice is a harsh rasp. He nudges her gently with his knee. She stirs a little in her sleep, complaining under her breath. He awkwardly reaches out with his right arm, relishing the increased manoeuvrability in his shoulder, although his movement is stiff and graceless. The pain is bearable now. He wonders if that's solely down to the drugs Marita has been force feeding him or whether he might actually be starting to heal.

He manages to close his fingers around a lock of hair and tugs at it gently. She responds immediately, sitting bolt upright. Her expression is sleepy and confused and angry all at once.

"Alex," she admonishes sleepily. "Alex, you shouldn't be moving that arm yet."

"It's fine. I'm fine."

She seems unconvinced. "Please don't overdo it."

He nods. He does not have the will to argue with her anymore. She looks weary and frayed around the edges. Her hair is a mad tangle of pale blonde. She's not wearing any makeup. It suits her, he thinks, those delicate little crow's feet beside her eyes. She looks less statuesque and more human. Her eyes are heavy lidded and, as he peers over at the wall clock, it's small wonder - it's 4am.

"Don't worry about me. You look tired, Mari."

She smiles a little, charmed by the nickname. "Is that a surprise?"

"You should be in bed. Not looking after me."

"You're sick," she says, in voice that invites no argument. He wonders how she can be so goddamn stubborn about it when she's clearly so exhausted she can barely keep her eyes open. He imagines it would take him jumping out of bed and dancing around the room for her to drop the Mother Teresa act.

"Please Marita, get some sleep," he says. _I'm fucking pleading here, _he wants to tell her, _do you think you can look after me properly when you're practically narcoleptic? We'll be a fucking brilliant team if we're ambushed, the lame leading the exhausted._ He doesn't voice his concerns, but stares at her defiantly.

She rolls her eyes and gets to her feet. Her clothes are as crumpled as she is. He hadn't thought it possible for her to look disheveled, as if she were born immaculate. He watches as she sits down on the side of the bed. And then she starts removing her blouse, button by button. He opens his mouth to speak but she's already shrugging her blouse from her shoulders, exposing the camisole she's wearing underneath. She tosses the blouse to the floor. He watches her in silent astonishment as she curls up beside him, resting her head on the edge of his pillow. There is space between them but he can see the faint swell of her vertebrae under the cream silk of her camisole, the delicate prickle of gooseflesh across her skin. He clutches the corner of the blanket in his right hand and slowly lifts it, draping the sheet loosely across Marita's shoulders. She takes the blanket from him and buries herself beneath it. For a short while, the only sound Krycek can hear is Marita breathing softly, and he watches with quiet fascination as she rests beside him. _There is something so fucking wrong with you_, he thinks ruefully, _if you think sleeping next to me is a good idea. I can't protect you. I can't do anything for you._

He turns his head away from her.

Krycek drifts into a fitful, feverish sleep. In his dreams, he still has both arms.


	6. Chapter 6

I want to reconcile the violence in your heart

I want to recognise your beauty's not just a mask

I want to exorcise the demons from your past

I want to satisfy the undisclosed desires in your heart

You trick your lovers

That you're wicked and divine

You may be a sinner

But your innocence is mine

"Undisclosed Desires"

Muse

They awake sharply to the sound of the door being kicked in. It resonates throughout the apartment like a thunderclap. Marita scrambles awkwardly to her feet, head fuzzy with sleep. She gropes blindly for her blouse.

"What are you doing?" Krycek asks, struggling to sit up.

"I…uh…" Marita stutters. She's kicked off her skirt in the night and looks somewhere between sublime and ridiculous, all wild hair and dishevelled silk camisole. One stocking sits high and prim on her thigh, the other pooled around her ankle. She's scrambling for her clothes. He wants to tell her it won't matter what she's wearing if they kill her.

"The gun," Krycek says, nodding towards the bedside table. He props himself up on one hand, gritting his teeth through the pain. He knows he needs to stand up but feels like he'll pass out with the effort. "In the drawer."

From downstairs there is a clamour of American voices. "Check all the rooms," one voice commands. There is a high-pitched crash as something valuable is thrown to the floor, and Marita recoils as if stung.

"Marita! The gun!" Krycek pleads through his teeth. She fumbles at the drawer with shaky hands. There is the hollow sound of footsteps on the stairs, growing louder as they approach. She grasps the gun awkwardly in both hands. Her eyes are wide and terrified and she holds the pistol as if it were on fire.

"Give it to me," Krycek holds out his hand. Tears of exertion stream down his face. The footsteps outside echo off the wooden floorboards. Marita shakes her head, and he wants to scream with the frustration of it, to lash out and grab the damn thing himself.

"You can't. Your arm."

He inhales sharply. "Marita," he growls. "Give me the fucking gun!"

She stares dumbly at him, pointing the gun at the floor. She breathes in panicked little gasps, suddenly a lost and bewildered little girl in spite of all the training she's had. He is about to reach out when the door is slammed wide open. Marita yelps pathetically, raising her hands over her head. He instinctively goes to grab his gun from his belt but remembers he is in bed, still dressed in hospital issue pajama pants, and he has one less arm to fight with. He curses himself inwardly for his inadequacies.

"In here!" the man shouts. He is short, abhorrently plump, with a thick black mustache and slicked back hair. He is holding an impractically large assault rifle in his fat little hands. He points it at Marita, who shrieks and drops into a defensive crouch. The man hasn't noticed the gun, which is a small blessing.

"You don't look well, Krycek," the fat man says conversationally.

"What the fuck's it matter to you?" Krycek spits. The fat man smirks, thick lips curling upwards, exposing rotten tombstone teeth.

"Just makes it easier for us, is all," he replies. His accent is abrasive, uncultured. "Like shooting fish in a barrel."

He is joined by another man, tall and blonde, with thick arms. His sloping forehead and broad, ugly features make Krycek think of Neanderthal man. "Who's the bitch?" he asks, casting a disgusted look at Marita.

"Probably a whore," the fat man dismisses. "Doesn't matter. Shoot her afterwards." He raises the gun, aiming between Krycek's eyes.

"Who sent you?" Krycek demands.

"Someone who'll be very happy when you're dead," the fat man responds. He flicks back the safety, adjusts his aim. "I'm doing you a favour here, Krycek. You're no good to anyone missing an arm."

Krycek stares coldly at him. He is desperately angry with himself but absolutely will not betray this fact. He had been prepared to die back in the forest, bleeding out into the grass, alone in the dark. But not here. Not sitting in bed, slick with fever sweat and incapable of reaching for his goddamn _gun_ while Marita cowers beside him in her underwear. Not like this.

The fat man smirks. One thick finger compresses the trigger. Krycek takes a deep, involuntary breath, sucking down his anger and the last shreds of his dignity. And then suddenly there is a thunderous boom, and the fat man keels slowly over, collapsing first onto his knees, then his face. Dark blood pools around his head, soaking into the cream carpet. The Neanderthal stands stunned, reaching falteringly for his own gun. He doesn't even get as far as his holster when he is downed, shot expertly between the eyes. He makes a heavy, wet sound as he hits the floor.

Krycek turns to Marita, staring open-mouthed at her. She's standing there in her silk camisole and sensible white underpants, stockings askew and hair tangled and snarled around her face. Her arms are outstretched and shaking, the gun gripped so hard her long fingers have turned bone white. She looks utterly absurd, and yet at this moment she's probably the most wonderful thing he's ever set his eyes on.

"Marita," he says, almost reverentially.

She doesn't respond. Her chest rises and falls heavily with each panicked breath. Eyes almost impossibly wide, she looks appalled at what she has just done. Shakily, she finds the edge of the bed and sits down.

"Marita," he says again. He stretches out his arm. The resultant pain in his shoulder is excruciating but he pushes it to the back of his mind, refusing to let his injuries best him.

Krycek's fingers gracelessly brush her shoulder. She leaps back as if burnt, swings her arms around so the cold barrel of the gun grazes his chin. Marita stares up at him with a wild-eyed intensity he doesn't recognise, lips curled in a bitter little snarl, teeth savagely bared. There is a long moment in which he is sure she will shoot him, that he will die here in his sickbed after all, killed by the woman who was supposed to save him. And then she drops her arms. The gun lands with an empty thud on the carpet. Ferocity gives way to anguish as her eyes fill with tears.

"Come here, Mari," Krycek says awkwardly, pulling her into a one-armed hug. She rests her head against his chest, sobbing helplessly into his t-shirt. He has never been particularly adept in comforting women. Seducing women, sure. He's world fucking class at that. But there's something about a crying woman that bothers him innately. Emotional support just doesn't come naturally to Alex Krycek, much less when the woman you're supposed to be supporting just dispatched two hitmen in a surprisingly expert manner. When she's just saved your life. Again.

She looks up at him nakedly, cheeks wet with tears. There is so much self-loathing in her eyes it almost hurts him. "How do you do it, Alex?"

"Do what?"

"Kill people." She wipes her eyes with the back of her hand, drawing in a shaky breath. "Oh God, Alex. I feel like shit. Worse than shit."

"You saved our lives," he reminds her. He smooths her hair gently with his hand, feeling the knots and gnarls beneath his fingers. "They'd have killed us without a thought."

Marita nods, unsure that this is enough to redeem her. She won't look at the bodies laying lifeless a few metres away, at the too-red blood soaking slowly into the carpet. Krycek wonders whether feigning ignorance really works, or whether Marita is heading for a nervous breakdown with all the shit she keeps buried under that preened and perfect exterior.

He holds her uneasily, smoothing her hair until her sobs become quieter, less frequent, at last dissipating into silence. He remembers cold Havířov nights, his mother stroking his hair, lulling him to sleep, the only real comfort he'd had as a child. He wonders what she'd make of him now, her little Alyosha, who has killed more times than he ever went to church.

"We can't stay here," she says, voice barely a murmur. "They know where you are now."

"I know," he tells her. He slips his hand beneath her chin, coaxing her gaze upwards. Her eyes are red-rimmed and swollen. She looks expectantly up at him, waiting for his next great idea, his back-up plan. He isn't sure how to explain he doesn't have one. He's amazed that she even trusts him after he practically led them into the lion's den. It's his own fault, of course, for choosing to hole up in the same city as his pursuers. The Consortium has eyes everywhere.

She's still looking up at him. He can't stand her earnest gaze any more. Impulsively, he presses his lips against her forehead, drawing her back into a clumsy embrace. She stiffens instinctively for a moment, then relaxes into him, resting her head against his chest. The slow, steady rhythm of his heartbeat is reassuring. It reminds her that they're both alive.

"Listen, Marita," he says softly. "There's no redemption. Not when you've killed someone. I know…" He breaks off, pressing another clumsy kiss to her forehead. "I know you're looking for absolution or whatever. I mean, Jesus. I've been looking for it for years. And it just isn't there. You killed two men because you had to. That's small stuff. I…I've killed just to make my life easier. To make my goddamn job easier."

She pulls out of his embrace, regarding him for a moment. His green eyes are troubled. As if he knows that what he has done is unquestionably wrong, but would do it all over again. Because, despite Marita's protestations, this is all he is. A gun for hire. A cold-blooded murderer.

"This isn't all you are, Alex," she tells him.

"I wouldn't bet money on that," he responds tersely. He turns his gaze away from her, fixing his eyes on the ostentatious gold-framed painting hanging on the opposite wall. It is a typically ugly Orthodox portrait of Mary, mother of Christ. Her eyes droop in a peculiarly gloomy way, her thin mouth turned down into a frown. Krycek wonders why the mother of God always looks so desperately sad.

"I don't regret it," he says, addressing the painting. "Everything I've done…even the things that make me sick to my stomach. Because it's all just a means to an end, right?" The painting says nothing; he hadn't expected it to. Mary's melancholy gaze is rebuke enough. He imagines his own mother, her sad Russian eyes and the tears shed on realising that her only son was leaving her just like his bastard American father did. He imagines her alone in her decaying Czech apartment, fading away in her rocking chair, waiting in vain for her Alyosha to come home. He never does, and there's the tragedy, the desolate full-stop.

"I don't know that this will ever end," Marita says. She sounds weary. "When they finally crack this vaccine…there will be nothing left to stop them."

"You make it sound so banal." Krycek smiles without mirth. "This isn't some comic book fantasy, Mari. It's not an inevitability. I'm going to keep fighting, even if it costs me another limb. Even if it kills me."

"Don't say that," she murmurs, suddenly aware of the space between them, of the way Krycek sits with his missing limb hidden from her view. After all this, he still doesn't trust her. And yet, that seems like a trivial detail now. In some strange childish way, she feels like she understands him better now. The bodies of the men lie still on the carpet, a tiny dot on the periphery of her vision, and she wonders how long it took before Krycek just stopped caring. She wonders if she'll ever be free of the crushing guilt she feels when she remembers the cold pliancy of the trigger beneath her finger.

Krycek gets slowly to his feet. He feels his body creak and complain as he stretches, sending a fresh wave of pain to what remains of his left arm. He is used to pain. He can brush off bullet wounds like insect bites if he needs to. Mind over matter, he tells himself, grimacing at the ache in his right shoulder which somehow seems so much worse than his left arm. He regards the bodies coldly as if they were discarded clothes. He muses for a moment over Marita's words: _'Don't say that'._ As if it matters to her either way whether his little crusade kills him or not. As if she'll even think of him when she return to New York, to her busy little life filled with Starbucks and board meetings and secret meetings with _them_.The idea that she might frightens him.

He watches her as she dresses in yesterday's clothes, an act which seems far too mundane for the situation they've found themselves in. She buttons her blouse with small, precise movements, gathering her scant belongings without ever looking at the dead men slumped a few feet away, the proverbial elephant in the room. She looks through them with a practised indifference he imagines she has learned through years of dull meetings.

"You've seen dead bodies before," he ventures.

It's clearly the wrong thing to say. She stares at him as if he's stupid, tight-lipped with repressed anger. "Not bodies dead because of me, Alex. I'm sorry if your pragmatic approach doesn't suit me."

He nods, almost appreciating her admonishment. He feels safer when Marita is at odds with him. He's already become dependent on her, repulsively indebted to her for nursing him like a sick child. He would be disgusted with himself if it weren't for the fact, stark as the Russian sky, that he has enjoyed her company. He hasn't needed her presence nearly as much as he has wanted it. And it dawns on him as Marita buttons up her overcoat, the afghan slung lazily over her shoulder, that he doesn't want her to leave him behind when they get to Zelenogorsk.

"…Alex?" Marita cocks her head to the side quizzically. "Are you coming?"

"Yeah. Sure."

He curses himself inwardly for his weakness. His injuries have made him soft, vulnerable. As they leave the darkened bedroom, stepping crudely over the dead men on the floor, he wishes he was back in Achinsk, suffering quietly in his secluded hospital room, alone.


End file.
